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About Martin Korndoerfer

I was born in 1979 in Munich and studied Biochemistry up to BSc level (2004). Then i travelled to Thailand and moved to Australia with my Australian wife (2005/2006). After two years of living in Brisbane we moved to Christchurch, NZ to do our MSc degrees in Environmental Science (2007-2009). The MSc thesis took me to Yelwa, Nigeria where i researched land-use and land-cover changes around Ngel Nyaki forest reserve. After this I worked as an English teacher in South Korea and moved back to Germany in 2010.

I first came in contact with permaculture activities through visiting Northey City Farm in Brisbane with a friend. At the University of Canterbury I joined Kakariki, the University Sustainability Club, which were running an amazing little garden in which some permaculture principles were incorporated. I wanted to do a PDC ever since i saw Geoff Lawton's Greening the Desert video in 2008 on Youtube, but only got around to it in 2011.

At the moment I am in the process of starting a new job in Hamburg, so i will start a little permaculture project in my garden there but in the long run i would like to get more involved in using permaculture as an effective means of aidwork in developing countries. I still have connections to different locations in Nigeria as well as helping out in an NGO in Kenya that is looking after orphans (http://www.hakuna-matata-project.org).
I will pay a visit to Kenya at the end of September for two weeks and try to start a project for this NGO on its lands near Meru. I would like to also re-visit Yelwa and see if i can implement a project there too, but I am aware that I have to do one step at a time...